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“You, my dear, are my drug.
I’m so damn addicted. I can’t quit you.(..)
The more I have of you, the more I need.
I can never get enough.”
- Aleatha Romig
...
Giyu knew that Sanemi Shinazugawa hated him. The Wind Pillar didn’t exactly make a secret of it, after all. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He tried not to think about it much. But he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know. So it made absolutely no sense for Giyu to be at his house. It made no sense any time, let alone in the middle of the night. He stopped at the gate, looking at the roof visible beyond it. He hesitated.
Why am I here?
He almost turned back. But then he closed his eyes, and he could see their faces again… Blank faced, blood-covered and eyes staring. The ones he couldn’t save. His most recent mission had been a failure. He’d killed the demon, of course. But the cost in human lives had been far higher than it should have been. He’d failed to anticipate that the demon would, in its rage, in livid denial at impending defeat, use what remained of its blood demon art in a final attack. Not on Giyu. On the people, hiding and scared in the buildings, watching with wide eyes through the windows. Giyu had not predicted that in the throes of death, the demon would take a quarter of the village square with him in a blast of ice that burned with cold fire.
Twenty-seven dead.
Giyu hated himself for failing them. If he’d been stronger, faster, smarter … But he wasn’t. People kept dying because of it. And now, even though his body was alive, it seemed like his soul was as dead as any of the ones who’d lost their lives. He couldn’t feel anything. His heart was a void, dark and black as pitch.
He knew he couldn’t keep going like this.
So he stepped up to Sanemi’s door, and he knocked.
And when Sanemi opened the door, wearing his hakama and nothing else, a sneer on his face, he only had time to ask, “ What the hell-?” before Giyu took his face in his hands and kissed him.
Why a kiss?
Giyu didn’t know, really. He could have punched him. He could have insulted him verbally. He could have likely done nothing at all - even showing up at his home in the middle of the night would’ve been sufficient, and the result would’ve been the same. Sanemi would be angry with him. And Giyu wanted Sanemi to be angry with him. He needed it. He didn’t deserve the Master’s praises. He didn’t want Shinobu’s concern. He didn’t want anyone to try and reassure him or justify his failure. He wanted someone to be furious with him, whether he deserved it or not, whether he could have saved anyone or not.
So he kissed Sanemi. Hard, and demanding. And he waited for him to react, to shove him away. Yell at him. Hit him. Curse him.
But he didn’t do any of those things.
Sanemi, instead, dragged him into the house and pushed him hard against the wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. He had a fist in Giyu’s hair, the other at the collar of his shirt. And he kissed Giyu back.
And that was exactly what Giyu needed.
Sanemi’s kiss was fury and rage and it seared through Giyu like wildfire, burning hot and fast. Consumed by that kiss, Giyu couldn’t think about the demon, or the dead, or his own failure. He couldn’t think about anything at all. Only Sanemi. His smell. His taste. The rough scars under Giyu’s hands. The coarse sound of his voice, growling as he kissed Giyu’s throat, a wolf with its teeth on his skin.
And then, as abruptly as Giyu had initiated the kiss, Sanemi ended it, backing sharply away from him, teeth bared in a fierce snarl. It was as though he’d suddenly realized what he was doing, who he was doing it with. They looked at each other, each of them breathing hard. Giyu felt his heart racing in his chest and tipped his head back against the wall. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt…alive…
After a moment Sanemi stalked back over to him, predatory, setting his hand on the wall beside Giyu’s head.
“You don’t say a fucking word about this,” he threatened, “To anyone.”
Giyu met his gaze calmly, drawn into the blaze in Sanemi’s violet eyes. And then he slipped around him, careful not to touch him, not bothering with a response. He walked back out the door, down the path, only glancing over his shoulder once as he got to the gate. Sanemi stood in his door, leaning against the frame, arms crossed over his chest, watching him.
Giyu looked away, and turned the corner, out of his line of sight. He felt somehow lighter. Like that kiss, underscored by Sanemi’s anger, had burned away some of the debris that was mired in his soul.
It wasn’t all that surprising, then, that after his next mission, when the cold and the death had crept back into his heart, he felt himself drawn to go to Sanemi again. After all, it had worked well enough the first time. Kissing Sanemi had let Giyu feel something, and the memory had lingered for weeks after.
He debated though. It was selfish to use Sanemi in this way. And there was no guarantee that Sanemi would even kiss him again. He wouldn’t be caught off guard the way he had been the first time. On the other hand… Maybe Sanemi would want to kiss him. Maybe the kiss had lingered with him too.
Giyu ultimately decided that the worst that could happen was that Sanemi would be angry and not kiss him. Well, that was essentially every interaction they’d ever had, outside of that one notable exception. So Giyu really had nothing to lose.
“Why the hell are you here again?” Sanemi growled when Giyu showed up on his doorstep, violet eyes dark, his white hair glowing under the light of an almost-full moon.
“I can leave,” Giyu said. He didn’t want to leave, though.
Sanemi narrowed his eyes. “Is this some kind of game you’re playing?”
Giyu shook his head. “It’s really not that deep.”
“Then what do you want, Tomioka?”
Giyu’s eyes skipped away from him.
“You know what I want.”
I want to feel something. I want my heart to be reminded that it’s alive. I want to kiss you. I want you to kiss me.
Sanemi seemed to be fighting himself, teeth grinding. Giyu understood his dilemma. The first time, Giyu had kissed him. He hadn’t asked. He’d simply acted. Sanemi’s choice to kiss him back, it could be argued, hadn’t really been much of a choice at all. A reaction, only. Simple, animal instinct.
This time… Sanemi would have to choose.
The time stretched and Giyu thought Sanemi was going to turn him away. But then Sanemi’s resolve crumbled. He grabbed Giyu’s arms, fingers digging hard into his triceps, and pulled him roughly forward.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he hissed fiercely. Then his lips claimed Giyu’s, hands sliding up his arms and to his face, tipping his head back, kissing him deeply. Giyu kissed him back, desperate and grateful. He felt for all the world like he was starving, and kissing Sanemi was the only thing that could fight it back. This life had left his spirit stripped and bare, the hunger to feel gnawing on him as viciously as a wild animal ripping every shred of meat from a bone. For reasons he couldn’t explain, kissing Sanemi seemed to be the only thing that could temper the pain. Beneath the Wind Pillar’s rough hands, captivated by the press of his lips, the aching in his soul dulled, and the emptiness in his heart filled. For a moment, he wasn’t just a tool, or a cog in a machine. For a moment, he was more than just a living corpse, fighting monsters until it was his turn to die.
Wrapped in Sanemi’s arms, Giyu felt like himself again.
Giyu had no way to measure the time that passed. It felt like hours. It still ended too soon.
After they’d separated, they didn’t talk. Giyu adjusted his clothes, straightened his haori, fixed the tie holding back his hair. Sanemi sat on the floor, cross-legged, chin in his hand, and watched him with sharp eyes.
“Should I expect you to keep showing up like this?” Sanemi asked harshly just as Giyu was about to walk out the door.
Giyu paused. He couldn’t read Sanemi’s voice. Did the Wind Pillar want him to come back? Or was he hoping Giyu would stop putting him in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between his loathing and his lust?
Either way… Did it matter to Giyu?
Kissing Sanemi was like taking medicine. It healed some part of him. But the effects didn’t last. He wasn’t fixed. The cold and the emptiness would come back. So…
“Probably,” Giyu said. Then he left without waiting to see if Sanemi had more to say. If Sanemi didn’t want him to come back, he could tell him. He could send Sorai. He could write him a letter. But until he did, Giyu would presume that the next time he needed this, whatever this was, Sanemi wouldn’t turn him away.
The need for Sanemi returned sooner than Giyu expected, though. After their first kiss, the memory had been enough to sustain him, and he hadn’t returned for close to a month. This time, barely over a week and a half had gone by when Giyu started to feel like he couldn’t breathe again. It was far too soon.
Giyu tried to wait. He focused his attention on his training, pushing himself in every session until his muscles were spent and he felt on the verge of collapse. He looked for distractions wherever he could find them. He hoped that the Master would send him on an assignment. But by the time two weeks had passed, the moon waning from full to a thin silver crescent, Giyu couldn’t go a day without feeling an irrepressible compulsion to see Sanemi.
His self-control finally broke when he woke in the middle of the night, the echoes of a nightmare blinding him, drowning him. Sanemi’s home was an hour away if he walked quickly. He didn’t care what the Wind Pillar would think. If he considered him weak. If he thought him to be pathetic. Giyu already believed he was those things. He didn’t want to think about that. He needed to forget.
He needed Sanemi to make him forget.
It was after midnight. There was no one else that would have showed up at his door. If Sanemi hadn’t wanted Giyu to come in, he would have ignored him when he knocked. So when Sanemi opened the door, Giyu considered it an invitation. He slipped past him without greeting, into the dark of his house, then turned and pressed into him, desperate, heart running from its desolation. His kiss pleaded with Sanemi to take away the emptiness, to make him feel okay again, alive again.
And Sanemi did.
His arms folded around Giyu, and he kissed him with wild abandon. And if his kiss lacked the rage and fury that it had in their first kiss, or the internal conflict of their second, it was no less passionate for it. After a while, without breaking their kiss, he pulled Giyu through his house, then dragged him down with him onto his bed. They lay side by side, legs tangled, hands skimming the edges of clothing, grazing skin, careless of the time that passed, until finally, finally, Giyu felt like he was no longer suffocating.
When Sanemi stopped kissing him, despite being breathless, Giyu felt like he could breathe for the first time in days. He lay beside Sanemi, their foreheads pressed together, and Sanemi had a hand on his neck, his thumb stroking Giyu’s jaw gently. Giyu was reluctant to move, caught up in the heady intoxication of feeling alive, his senses heightened, his spirit singing. He might have stayed there, content to be beside the Wind Pillar, to feel the warmth of him, and listen to his heart beating. For another hour, for the rest of the night even, except…
“Do you want to talk about whatever this is?” Sanemi asked quietly.
Giyu opened his eyes in alarm. Sanemi was looking at him. His thumb was moving still, smooth, steady caresses against his cheek. He was uncharacteristically calm, his usual fiery temper absent, his eyes free of any animus.
Giyu’s mind balked at Sanemi’s question.
Talk to Sanemi about this?
And tell him what, exactly?
That Giyu’s soul felt like it was dying? That the blood and the death and the loneliness that ruled his existence were killing him? That Sanemi had become like a drug to chase all of that away? That he was using him?
No.
There wasn’t anything to talk about. And he might feel bad about it, except that he knew that it went both ways. Whatever Sanemi was getting out of this, Giyu wasn’t naive enough to think anything so trivial as feelings were involved.
Giyu drew back, out of Sanemi’s arms, and sat up, legs swinging out of the bed.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Giyu said flatly.
“Giyu-” Sanemi said, sitting up behind him.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Giyu said, his voice harder.
Sanemi growled at his back. “Fine, asshole. Then get out.”
So Giyu did.
The walk back home felt long. And by the time he got back, he realized, dismayed, that his heart was already beginning to ask when the next time would be. He stepped inside, went to his room, set his back against the wall and slid to the floor, his head dropping into his hands. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go to Sanemi every night. And after Sanemi had asked him that question, he felt reluctant to go back to him at all.
So he didn’t.
Though his heart and his soul begged for Sanemi’s touch, longed for the relief only he seemed able to offer, Giyu forced himself to stay away. And it was hell.
Every day that passed, he felt himself fading, getting colder, simply existing. He slept. He ate. He trained. He patrolled. He went on missions when directed. He tried not to think. He tried to embrace not feeling. Sorai occasionally flew over Giyu’s house, landed on his gate, watched him with dark eyes. He never delivered a message.
Giyu anticipated that he wouldn’t see Sanemi again until the next Pillar meeting. It was still several months away. But Sanemi, it seemed, had different plans in mind. Giyu was training in his yard when Sanemi showed up. A range of conflicting emotions swarmed through Giyu when Sanemi came through his gate. His heart leapt into his throat. His stomach twisted, anxious or anticipating, probably both. His mind asked why Sanemi was there. His spirit didn’t care why, and yearned towards him.
“Want someone to spar with?” Sanemi asked, holding up his bokken.
Giyu hesitated, but then nodded. Without a word, he took a stance, and Sanemi did the same. Giyu watched him closely, ready to pinpoint the barest hint of which direction the Wind Pillar would strike from. When he moved, he was swift and savage, as untamed as the wind for which his Breathing style was named. Giyu defended with precision, turning Sanemi’s blade away again and again, until Sanemi distracted him with an overhead strike that turned out to be a feint. He instead forewent his blade entirely, taking advantage of Giyu’s misstep, and swept Giyu’s legs with an unforgiving kick that struck the back of his knees. The world inverted, and Giyu hit the ground, the air punching out of his lungs. In less than a heartbeat, Sanemi was on him, crouched over his chest, a foot pinning his sword arm, his blade, point-first, pressed under Giyu’s chin.
“That was sloppy as hell,” Sanemi snapped at him.
Giyu took in a slow breath, his lungs struggling for a moment as they regained their function.
“Get off,” Giyu said when he had enough oxygen to do so.
Sanemi complied. They walked to Giyu’s well and he pulled up the bucket of water, handing a cup to Sanemi.
“You haven’t been by in a long time,” Sanemi said.
Giyu turned his face away from Sanemi. He didn’t have anything to say to that. He couldn’t tell Sanemi that staying away had been torture. He couldn’t tell him that he wanted to kiss him again like he wanted to eat, like he wanted to breathe. He couldn't tell him how much he needed him.
“You can…” Sanemi said. His voice was rough. Uncaring. “We don’t have to talk. You don’t have to tell me whatever the hell is going on in your head, if you don’t want to.”
Giyu closed his eyes. The invitation tugged at the shoddy stitches that were holding closed the bone-deep rent in Giyu’s soul that represented everything Sanemi helped him to escape and overcome.
He suddenly knew that he wasn’t going to be able to stay away. Worse, he didn’t think he could wait even until the sun had gone down. Because his skin was itching to be touched, his nerves craved sensation, his soul was longing for connection, and Sanemi was there. Right there. Right beside him. And he was telling him that he could come back.
After so long, Giyu’s restraint was as weak as a frayed thread. He opened his eyes. He looked at Sanemi. Met his gaze. Saw the fire burning there. And what remained of that restraint snapped. He stood up, walked toward his house, looked back at Sanemi and tilted his head. The Wind Pillar picked up his cue and followed him.
They stepped inside and the second the door shut, Sanemi gripped him, pulling him into his arms, and they were utterly consumed with one another. Giyu’s heart soared. He had no words to describe it except that it felt like he’d been separated from his own body, and finally kissing Sanemi after so long, his soul was drawn back in. He felt whole again. Relief and elation threaded together, suffusing every cell of his body, flowing through every vein.
I missed you.
The thought was sweet and painful and Giyu ignored it, shutting it in a box and burying it. He hadn’t missed Sanemi. He couldn't have. He’d only missed kissing him. He’d missed feeling this feeling that he only had when he was with him. Missing someone implied emotions. He knew that that couldn’t be the case. Not with them. Because Sanemi hated him, and Giyu knew that Sanemi hated him, and there were no more emotions between them than that.
Sanemi didn’t leave until well after the sun had gone down. Giyu walked with him to the door. And though he didn’t say a word of farewell, Sanemi touched Giyu’s hand as he passed him and walked out into the night. Giyu watched him go, and felt as though a part of his heart was going with him. He closed his eyes and let that feeling go. He focused on the heat in his veins instead. Alive again. At least for this moment.
The next night, he went to Sanemi’s. He stayed until the moon hung low on the Western horizon. He returned home. Then, the night after that, he went again. And then again, and again until it would have felt stranger to not see Sanemi than to see him. Even when Giyu didn’t go to Sanemi’s, Sanemi ended up coming to him. Giyu started to impatiently look forward to the evenings.
By unspoken agreement, they began to expect one another’s company every night. And every night in one another’s company, they found new ways to experience one another, pushing the boundaries of propriety further and further. Every night it got harder to say goodbye.
And despite that Giyu didn’t want to talk, unwilling to pretend that their arrangement was something more than it was, sometimes in the space between when they were done kissing, but before they parted ways, they did. About little things. Stupid, meaningless things. Like what foods they liked, and if they preferred the Spring or the Fall. The conversations were awkward, stilted. Because Sanemi hated Giyu, and they both knew it. But over time, it started to feel somewhat less awkward. Sanemi became less abrasive, less insulting, about Giyu’s opinions when he shared them. And Giyu gradually began to share more.
As time passed like that, night after night, it became clear to Giyu that as long as he continued to see Sanemi, he would continue to feel like himself. His heart felt steadier. His soul felt lighter. The memories of his failures were manageable. He didn’t feel like he was drowning, or like he was dead without having died. Sanemi cured him of those things. As long as Giyu saw him, at least.
Then Giyu was assigned to a mission.
There was little information offered. A location, and the report that nearly half a dozen slayers of mid-to-upper rank had disappeared in the effort to subdue the demon that hunted there. The demon was strong. Possibly, it was a Lower Moon.
“I could go with you,” Sanemi suggested when Giyu told him the night before he was supposed to leave. They were sitting on Sanemi’s bed, Sanemi cross-legged, his knee touching Giyu’s leg, leaning on his arm, set on the mattress behind Giyu.
“It isn’t your assignment,” Giyu said, shaking his head. He pulled his hair into his hands, then accepted the tie that Sanemi held out to him, fixing it around his hair.
Sanemi scoffed, “Who the hell cares?”
“The Master will if he tries to give you an assignment of your own, and you’re across the country on a mission you weren’t instructed to go on,” Giyu said. He glanced at Sanemi and added, “And then they’ll wonder why you’re on a mission you weren’t instructed to go on. With me.”
Sanemi groaned and tipped his head back. “Damn it,” he sighed.
Giyu rolled his eyes, “We would have to stay focused anyways. None of…this…” he gestured between them. “Since it’s not like you enjoy my company, killing a demon wouldn’t be worth the time you’d have to spend with me.”
Sanemi shifted, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and gave Giyu a look that was difficult for him to interpret. It almost seemed as though he couldn’t quite believe what Giyu had just said.
“What?” he asked sharply, “You don’t agree?”
Sanemi frowned darkly and looked away, setting his chin in his hand. “You’re an idiot,” he muttered.
Giyu stood up, his stomach twisting a little uncomfortably. He didn’t think anything he’d said was that controversial. Why would Sanemi want to spend an entire mission with him? It was one thing to talk a little when they were together each night. Sanemi humored him, and Giyu would be lying if it hadn’t started to feel…nice…to have someone talk to him. Very few people did. But just because Sanemi had decided that talking was less difficult than not talking when they were spending every night wrapped around one another, didn’t mean that he would find it enjoyable, or even endurable, spending days forced to share his company.
“I’ll see you when I get back,” Giyu said, adjusting his haori.
He was about to walk out of the room but Sanemi caught his hand. Giyu glanced at it in surprise, then back at Sanemi.
“Would you just…be careful…” Sanemi said, not looking at him, “Don’t get your stupid ass killed.”
Giyu looked back down at Sanemi’s hand, gripping his. He nodded once slowly, and Sanemi released his hand. Giyu stood there for a moment, then turned and left.
Be careful? It wasn’t a sentiment that Giyu would expect from the Wind Pillar who, as a rule, slayed demons with reckless abandon, going so far as using his own blood to bait them. It was baffling to hear him request that Giyu be careful . That wasn’t the job. Killing demons was the job. And it was inherently dangerous. There was no being careful about it.
Why would he say something like that?
The next morning, Giyu set out. It took him several days to reach the region where the demon was supposed to be hunting, and another three days to find it, and the entire time, he found his thoughts returning to Sanemi, over and over, and the need he felt whenever he didn’t see him began to creep back in, stronger with every day that passed.
Finally, he tracked the demon down. He interrupted it as it was about to devour a young man who, against Giyu’s orders to the villagers, had been out after dark. The demon wasn’t a lower moon, but it could have been for the fight it put up. Based on its strength, Giyu guessed that it was old, and had likely devoured hundreds, perhaps thousands, of humans. It was rare for a demon like this to remain under their radar for so long.
Giyu won. But it cost him. The demon had displayed an unusual skill that Giyu hadn’t seen before, able to set his blood demon art like a trap, springing it when Giyu was close enough. He’d figured out how to read the signs and avoid the traps, but the first one had caught him off guard and torn a gash through his side. Using his breathing and a rough bandage to stanch the bleeding, he managed to dispatch the demon and then make it back to the village before fatigue and blood loss made him collapse.
It took him two weeks to recover.
He spent the first week in and out of consciousness as his body healed the damage to his abdominal oblique and latissimus muscles. He was lucky that none of his organs had been caught when the scythe-like blade had ripped through his side.
When Giyu was asleep, he often dreamed of Sanemi.
The second week, he thought he could probably have traveled. He felt the pull to see Sanemi again, the yearning for him becoming less tolerable. But the doctor caring for him insisted, firmly, that he wait, disbelieving that Giyu could have recovered from such a serious wound so quickly. Giyu decided he could humor the man for a couple days, a gesture of gratitude for his services in helping him heal.
Finally, he made the journey back home. When he walked up to his house, he saw Sorai perched on his gate. He raised an eyebrow at the bird. Why was he there? Sanemi wouldn’t have known Giyu was coming back that day. Surely he hadn’t directed Sorai to just wait until he returned. The bird took off when he stepped through the gate and flew swiftly away in the direction of Sanemi’s home. Giyu shook his head and went inside.
Seeing Sorai brought up thoughts of Sanemi. Not surprising, given that Giyu found himself thinking of Sanemi more often than not anymore. He wanted to see him. The fact that he was merely an hour away made him feel a whole range of things that were difficult to untangle.
He made himself stay home. He was filthy, and he was exhausted. No matter how badly he wanted to see Sanemi, he could force himself to wait one more night. Sanemi wouldn’t want to see him in this state anyway.
He drew himself a bath and stripped out of his clothes, carefully removing his bandages. His stitches were tender, but there wasn’t any infection and Giyu thought he’d be fully recovered within another week. The bath felt good, washing away the dirt and dust and sweat of days of travel. He soaked until the water became cooler than was comfortable, then got out and dressed himself in a lightweight cotton kimono. He let his hair hang over his shoulders as it dried, and got some fresh bandages to wind around his waist and cover his stitches. He went out onto his porch and sat down. The sun was beginning to set on the western horizon, casting the sky in streaks of fiery red and deep vermillion, the edges of the clouds lined with gold.
He had just started placing his bandages when Sanemi showed up at his gate, Sorai circling in the sky above. Giyu’s heart jumped and began to beat fast in his chest. Giyu tried to quiet it. But it was difficult. After close to a month, the craving for Sanemi was unbearable, and seeing him brought that feeling surging to the surface, coursing just beneath Giyu’s skin.
“You’re back,” Sanemi said as he walked up to Giyu’s porch.
“...Yes,” Giyu said, struggling to keep his voice steady.
You’re here. You came here. I missed you.
Giyu silenced the voice in his head firmly, berating himself for acting like Sanemi was there because he actually wanted to see him.
“You were gone a long time,” Sanemi noted. He gestured to Giyu's side. “Looks like you tried to get your ass killed after all.”
“If you're just here to criticize me, you can go,” Giyu said, even as his heart rejected the notion. He didn't want Sanemi to leave. Just the thought of him walking away made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.
Stay. Please stay.
“I'm not criticizing you, Giyu. You should've been back a week ago,” Sanemi said. He came and sat down on the porch, looking up at the glowing evening sky. “I was starting to think you actually did get yourself killed.”
“What would that have mattered?” Giyu asked, looking down at his side as he wound the bandages around his waist. “Corps members die almost every day. It’s the job.”
Sanemi glared at him. “I would care if you died, moron.”
Giyu paused mid-way through the next wrap. He looked over at Sanemi. “You'd what?” he asked, not sure he'd heard him correctly.
Sanemi ground his teeth. “I would care. If you died.”
Giyu faltered. He didn't know how to respond. Two sides of him began fighting. The first was trying very hard to jump in hopeful leaps and bounds to illogical conclusions that made Giyu's heart want to race and his face want to flush. The second was adamantly reminding him that this whatever they had between them started and ended with filling a mutual desire for physical contact with another human being, and it didn't run any deeper than that.
After all. Sanemi hated him. And they both knew it.
So, given that fact, Giyu had to ask.
“Why?”
The look Sanemi gave him could have peeled paint off a wall. He stood up, hands curled in fists.
“Glad you’re back alive, dumbass,” he snapped, and he started to leave.
Giyu’s heart sank. He wanted to call him back, follow him, grab him and pull him into his arms and kiss him and not stop, not ever. But…he thought he ought to let Sanemi leave. If that was what he wanted. He was angry. It occurred to Giyu that Sanemi hadn’t been really angry with him in a long time. But, oh, he was certainly angry now. Giyu didn’t even fully understand why.
Or maybe Giyu just wasn’t willing to accept the reason he might be angry.
Because… Sanemi hated him.
Sanemi had always hated him. It was so fundamental to Giyu’s understanding of the Wind Pillar. He couldn’t fathom that anything else was possible.
But then, it hadn’t really felt like hate in a long time either.
Giyu stood up, and said, “Sanemi, wait.”
Sanemi stopped. He glared over his shoulder. His whole body was tense. Giyu could see it in the set of his shoulders, the ready stance of his feet. He was defensive. Ready to fight. So why did he seem so vulnerable?
Giyu stepped down to the ground. “Please…don’t go.”
“Why?” Sanemi barked, the question a cruel imitation of Giyu’s.
“I…” Giyu hesitated. He didn’t want to admit this. He didn’t want to confess to Sanemi that…he’d let himself get in too deep. He didn’t want to acknowledge - even to himself, let alone Sanemi - that he’d allowed his emotions to get involved. Most of all, he didn’t want to scare Sanemi away, and he wished he knew the right thing to say to make sure that didn’t happen. He didn’t know. He hated that he didn’t know. But his instincts whispered that if he didn’t tell Sanemi the truth right now, then he was going to leave. And Giyu couldn’t let him do that. He needed him.
“I want you to stay,” Giyu said, “Please. I… I want you to stay. With me.”
Sanemi turned around. He started to come back, wary, his gaze sharp.
“Why?” he asked again.
“Because…” Giyu said helplessly, at a loss.
Sanemi stepped up to him, less than a foot between them.
“Why, Giyu?” Sanemi snarled.
Tell him the truth, his heart demanded.
He didn’t want to, though. It didn’t matter what the truth was if Sanemi didn’t feel the same way. They could just keep pretending, couldn’t they? Nothing had to change. It was enough to kiss Sanemi. He didn’t need more than that. If giving him the truth meant that Sanemi left Giyu completely… No. That, Giyu couldn’t live with. His gaze skipped to the side, up to the sky, anywhere but at Sanemi, anywhere but his eyes.
But no matter how he tried to keep them in, the words had to come out.
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you,” Giyu finally hissed through his teeth, “You told me when you kissed me that it didn’t mean anything, and I swear it was never supposed to. But…it does… It does to me. It’s like I can’t even breathe when I’m not with you, Sanemi. I think I love you-”
Sanemi’s hands suddenly reached up to his face, and he kissed Giyu fiercely, cutting off anything else he might have said. Nothing else he might have said really mattered, after all. He'd said the most important part. Sanemi threaded his hands into Giyu's damp hair, fingers curling against his scalp. He kissed him until Giyu was breathless and dizzy, and when Sanemi finally drew back, only just, barely a breath between their lips, it was only so he could murmur, “Was it really so damn hard to just say that?”
Then he kissed him again. And something had changed in it. Still passionate, still full of fire, but there was something in the way that Sanemi held him. Like Giyu was something precious. Like he was someone worth holding.
“I missed you,” Sanemi breathed roughly against his skin.
They went inside Giyu’s house, went to his bed, and they made up for lost time, lips on every inch of exposed skin, hands wandering over each other. After a while, they abandoned their clothes on the floor, and their kissing finally crossed from one threshold to the next, becoming more. The sun went down, the moon crossed the sky, and when the dawn came, they were still together, curled against each other, hearts in sync, breathing slowly.
Giyu woke up in Sanemi’s arms. He felt Sanemi’s heartbeat under his hand. For the first time since he’d first kissed Sanemi, looking for something to take away the emptiness, to make him feel alive, he felt something more than he ever had before. He looked up at Sanemi, his face relaxed in sleep. No longer just a drug that had to be administered again and again, never lasting.
For the first time, held in Sanemi’s arms, Giyu’s soul felt like it was starting to actually heal.
For the first time, he felt more than simply alive.
For the first time, he was at peace.
...
“Love is the greatest healing power I know.
Love can heal even the deepest and most painful memories
because love brings the light of understanding
to the darkest corners of our hearts and minds.”
-Louise Hay